Korean Broadcasting Technology Could Become International Standard Next Month

Korea’s terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) is expected to be adopted as the international standard.

According to an announcement by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) on September 11, the TTA and the Radio Research Laboratory (RRL) are planning to submit the standard plan for Korean terrestrial DMB technology to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s radio broadcasting working group conference to be held from October 7 to 11 in Geneva, Switzerland.

As soon as the working group finishes deliberations, the upper committee will discuss whether or not to adopt the Korean standard plan as the international standard.

“Given that considerable progress has been made in verifying the technology, including the June adoption of the Korean technology as the European standard, we expect that the Korean technology standard will be easily adopted as the international standard,” said TTA and the RRL officials.

Their explanation is that in terms of technology, the Korean standard has no obstacles in being adopted as the international standard, with terrestrial DMB service kicking off in earnest in Korea this December.

In this vein, it is widely anticipated that the Korean terrestrial DMB standard might rapidly make its way into DMB markets worldwide, including the United States and Asian countries following its success in Europe.

Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and other Korean manufacturers have already completed development of terrestrial DMB cell phones, brightening their prospect of advancing on the world handset market.

“As with CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cell phones, Korea can emerge as one of the biggest exporters in the field of DMB handsets,” said Chief Researcher Goh Jeong-min of the Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI). “The country should also take initiative in the contents market by generating distinctive contents, such as an interactive service where one purchase goods while watching DMB broadcast.”

Sang-Hoon Kim sanhkim@donga.com